Foundation of the Belgian Society for Viruses of Microbes and Meeting Report of Its Inaugural Symposium.

The Belgian Society for Viruses of Microbes (BSVoM) was founded on 9 June 2022 to capture and enhance the collaborative spirit among the expanding community of microbial virus researchers in Belgium. The sixteen founders are affiliated to fourteen different research entities across academia, industry and government. Its inaugural symposium was held on 23 September 2022 in the Thermotechnical Institute at KU Leuven.

Evaluation of the Stability of Bacteriophages in Different Solutions Suitable for the Production of Magistral Preparations in Belgium.

In Belgium, the incorporation of phages into magistral preparations for human application has been permitted since 2018. The stability of such preparations is of high importance to guarantee quality and efficacy throughout treatments. We evaluated the ability to preserve infectivity of four different phages active against three different bacterial species in five different buffer and infusion solutions commonly used in medicine and biotechnological manufacturing processes, at two different concentrations (9 and 7 log pfu/mL), stored at 4 °C.

Comparison of procedures for RNA-extraction from peripheral blood mononuclear cells.

RNA quality and quantity are important factors for ensuring the accuracy of gene expression analysis and other RNA-based downstream applications. Thus far, only a limited number of methodological studies have compared sample storage and RNA extraction procedures for human cells. We compared three commercially available RNA extraction kits, i.

Development of a qPCR platform for quantification of the five bacteriophages within bacteriophage cocktail 2 (BFC2).

To determine phage titers accurately, reproducibly and in a non-laborious and cost-effective manner, we describe the development of a qPCR platform for molecular quantification of five phages present in bacteriophage cocktail 2 (BFC2). We compared the performance of this molecular approach, with regard to quantification and reproducibility, with the standard culture-based double agar overlay method (DAO). We demonstrated that quantification of each of the five phages in BFC2 was possible by means of qPCR, without prior DNA extraction, but yields were significantly higher in comparison to DAO.